From the 'Well of the Retching Cure' to a commuter village on the M9 motorway

1641 Depostions

Depositions relating to the 1641 rebellion in Ireland have been digitalized by Trinity College Ireland and placed online for free viewing. These depositions were taken by the Commission for the Despoiled Subject during the 1640s and by various commissioners during the 1650s.[1] The 1640s in Ireland were a time of rebellion, massacre and uprising by the native Irish Catholics against the English and Scottish Protestant land owners. Beginning in Ulster it spread to the rest of the county before ultimately ending with the arrival of the forces of Oliver Cromwell.

In the folio’s relating to Kilkenny, there were three depositions taken from people who lived in Gowran. They were Henry White, his daughter Ann Bradford and her husband Alexander Bradford. While all the names and events that they report do not match up, they seem to give depositions about the same series of events. A number of English people in the Gowran area are rounded up by Peirce Butler, Walter Butler of Paulstown and Morris Kelly of Gowran in 1642. They are kept in a prison at Gowran for a few weeks until they are moved, under the pretence of being brought to Duncannon in Wexford. However, near New Ross many of them are murdered, with some people escaping.

Paulstown is mentioned twice, with surrounding areas such as Gowran and Leighlin also mentioned. The text in bold is the actual writing from the deposition.

On 14 August 1652 the deposition of Henry White of Gowran was taken. Originally from Gloucestershire and aged 54, he was living “about Laughli{n} Gorian & the lowe grauge in the County of Kilkeny thirty years.”[2] In May 1642 he and about twenty seven other people were rounded up and brought to the prison in Gowran. After this “Captain Pierce Butler and Sir Walter Butler of Poulston in the County of Kilkeny baronet sent [them] away from Gouran one pretence of being to be Convayd to Doncanon.”[3]Henry White and his wife managed to escape with the help of Sir Edward Butler and “the Examinant heard that the sayd English were murthered between Ross and Duncanon & that not aboue foure of them Escaped of that whole number.”[4]

On 17 August 1652 a deposition was taken from Ann Bradford of Gowran. She was born in Gowran, her father being Henry White, and was married to Alexander Bradford. She states that “Walter Butler of Poulstowne & Peirce Butler sonne to Sir Edward Butler came to Gowran & the places thereto adiacent & seised vpon & tooke all the English Inhabitants they could find, and gathering them together putt them into prison in Gowra{n}.”[5] They were kept in the prison for about two weeks until they were brought towards New Ross where “Morris Kelly of Gowran aforesaid being Ensigne to Captain Pierce Butler comaunded the said Convoy.”[6] Bradford states that about 30-40 people were taken prisoner and brought to near New Ross. She then outlines how all the people were murdered except her, her sister and some children, “after that ther came 7 or 8 persons out of the said towne of Rosse with swords & batts in ther hands & did driue them a mile below Ross to a woods side and ther they murdered all the English except this examinant her husbands sister & 4 small children.”[7]